


Security

by baroque_mongoose



Category: Girl Genius, Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2575451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroque_mongoose/pseuds/baroque_mongoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Harriet Wooster meets an old friend of her Uncle Ardsley, and has to work a few things out on her feet as a result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Security

Harriet Wooster stood on the platform of the airship dock at Oxford, feeling very adult and independent. So far, she had been living on her own away from home for three days; and, while this was, after all, in college, so there was still a good deal that she did not have to think about for herself, she was nonetheless finding it an enjoyable breath of fresh air, no matter how much she loved her parents and her younger brother.

Even so, she would still have been inclined to regard herself as a girl rather than a young lady, if it had not been for one very important fact. She had a young man. A young man who, unless the airship timetables had gone completely to pot, would be landing here very shortly with all his luggage. He was the reason why she had insisted on going up to Oxford a little early; she wanted to get to know the place at least fairly well so that she could show him round, since this would be the first time he had ever set foot in England.

She had met him in Lucknow. Her Uncle Ardsley was Her Undying Majesty's Ambassador to the Wulfenbach Empire, and that was the sort of position that got one certain perks, such as reasonably generous leave and the ability to take advantage of diplomatic travel arrangements; and his side of the family had relatives in Lucknow, so he had finally arranged to go and see them. Her aunt had not been at all keen on taking the girls out there, since they were both quite young, but Harriet had been more than interested in the trip. So she'd gone out there with Uncle Ardsley and enjoyed it enormously, and about halfway through their visit one of the cousins had thrown a huge party which had involved a lot of bells and dancing and food and drink and seemingly hundreds of people. And in the midst of it all, someone had said, “Oh, you're going to Oxford? You must come and meet Pradhi. He's going to Oxford too.”

So she had met Pradhi Bajpai for the first time, but by no means the last. He was tall, almost as tall as Uncle Ardsley, with a shy smile and beautiful Lucknowite manners, and he had seemed a little out of place among all the bustle and noise of the party. But they had hit it off immediately, and after a while Uncle Ardsley, who never missed a thing, had come over to join them for a chat.

And that had gone remarkably well. Harriet knew very well that she did not need anyone's approval on matters involving affairs of the heart, but, nonetheless, she was still glad Uncle Ardsley approved of Pradhi. It had made life a great deal easier when they returned and she'd had to broach the subject with her parents. Father was usually all right, but Mother was the sort of person who had turns, as she called them, and very many things could send her into one of her turns. Pradhi could very well have done so. The problem would not, of course, have been his race, given the fact that Father was a quarter Indian himself and looked it. It would have been things like distance, and what was going to happen when Pradhi graduated, which was all, of course, just code for “Mother is terrified that I may marry him and go and live in India and she will never see me again”.

But Uncle Ardsley liked Pradhi, and was happy to advocate for him enthusiastically. It helped a great deal that he and Father had been brought up speaking both English and Hindustani, since their parents had heard somewhere that bringing up children bilingual helped them to learn other languages later on. This had clearly worked quite well for Father, and astonishingly well for Uncle Ardsley, who was fluent in... well, most things, as far as Harriet could work out. He had not, however, had cause to speak Hindustani for a long time, and Pradhi was more than willing to sit and chat with him in it so that he could brush up his skills in that language. Also, Pradhi liked cricket, and that was as sure a way to Uncle Ardsley's heart as anything Harriet knew. By the time they left Lucknow, Harriet was perfectly clear that if she did marry Pradhi and for any reason her father refused to give her away, her uncle would step into the breach like a shot.

Though that, she reflected with a little smile, was getting much too far ahead of herself. They both had three years at Oxford to live through before anything like that could be thought of.

Now, where in the world was the airship? She checked her watch again. Bother, she thought. It's late.

But there was another airship docking at the next platform, and one of the disembarking passengers caught her eye. Something about the way he moved had attracted her attention. As she turned to look at him, she saw him clearly and gave a little gasp.

A Jäger. The first one she'd ever seen in real life.

She'd always wanted to meet a Jäger, a fact which would have terrified her mother if she had known it. But then, she knew much more about the Jägerkin than most young British ladies ever found out. That, again, was down to Uncle Ardsley, who'd been a spy before he became Ambassador (a fact which she had finally got him to admit in Lucknow, following an unexpected encounter with one of his old enemies) and had made friends with a good many Jägers in the course of his sometimes near-fatally exciting career. He always spoke very highly of them, and he still saw Dimo, Maxim and Oggie regularly, since they were now Lady Heterodyne's personal guard. Whether or not Lady Heterodyne would actually ever get round to marrying young Baron Wulfenbach was anyone's guess, but she was certainly on Castle Wulfenbach quite often.

This Jäger, going by her uncle's descriptions, was not Dimo, Maxim or Oggie. He was green like Dimo, but his hair was just black without the hint of aubergine that Dimo's apparently had, and he was clean-shaven. As he drew closer, Harriet could see that his eyes were green too, but a shade which would have been unusual for a human; they were quite a light sage colour, not unlike his skin. He carried a large canvas bag slung effortlessly across his shoulder, but, despite his obvious strength, he looked unsure of himself, somehow. He stopped in his tracks, looking round.

Harriet walked up to him. “Good morning, sir,” she said politely. “You look a little lost. Can I help you?”

He grinned, showing a row of fangs; but there was nothing remotely dangerous in his eyes. “Hyu very kind,” he replied. “Danke. Ja, hy lookink for der airship dat goes to Bath.”

“H'mm,” said Harriet. “Well, I'm not sure which platform that leaves from, but we can soon find out.” She gave him a quick glance. “This may be a ridiculous question, but do you by any chance know my uncle? Sir Ardsley Wooster?”

He stared at her. “Mister Vooster? He is a Sir now?” He beamed all over his face. “Is goot! Is very goot! Ja, he is a goot friend, but ve lost touch ven hy vent to vork for der Baron. My name is Ottokar, und hy very pleased to meet hyu.”

“Delighted to meet you too. I'm Harriet.” Jägers, she knew, either did not have or chose not to use surnames, and it seemed a little excessive to insist that this one should address her as Miss Wooster, especially given the respect in which he clearly held her uncle. “So, were you in the caves?”

“Hy tink hy vos about der only Jäger who vos not dere or in Mechanicsburg,” he replied. “No, hy vos on Castle Vulfenbach. Und hyu uncle could not write to me dere. It vos complicated.”

Harriet grinned. “I bet it was,” she said, knowingly. She was still trying to piece together all the details, but from several things her uncle had said, she was well aware that he and the young Baron had had some massive... well, call it a split... at some point. It probably wasn't accurate to call it a fall-out, since they never actually seemed to have developed a dislike for each other. It was far more likely to have been politics, or to do with her uncle's dangerous occupation, or a bit of each. She wondered if Ottokar knew what Uncle Ardsley had been.

Probably, she thought. But I'm saying nothing until I'm sure.

“I thought all the Jägers worked for Lady Heterodyne, though?” she continued.

“Vell, vit me it is complicated,” said Ottokar, with a smile. “Hy know. Alvays vit der complicated. Hyu see, hy not been a Jäger for many years. Hy almost vun by accident, if hyu like. So hy never took der oath like de rest.” He reached up and touched the brass trilobite insignia on the front of his shako. “Hy loyal to her. She sent me dis, by hyu uncle. But hy dun vork for her, und so, ven der young Baron needed a chef...”

“A chef!” exclaimed Harriet. “I didn't know there were Jäger chefs.”

“Hy tink hy der only vun,” Ottokar admitted. “But, hy goot.”

“You'd have to be, to work for the Baron,” said Harriet. “It must have been...”

She was interrupted. “Miss! Excuse me! Miss!”

She turned. A porter was hurrying up, looking very flustered and a little pale.

“I... excuse me, miss,” he said, urgently. “Might I have a word in your ear?”

“Certainly, but since you're here, when is the next airship to Bath and from which platform does it leave?” Harriet asked.

“Oh... it's not for half an hour yet, miss. Platform 4. Here, let me walk you over there.”

“I'm not going to Bath,” Harriet explained. “My friend here is.”

The porter turned even paler and beckoned Harriet to one side. He said in an undertone, “Miss, that's a Jäger.”

“Yes,” said Harriet. “I can see that. His name is Ottokar and he's an old friend of my uncle's.”

“Oh, miss.” The porter gave her a pitying look. “Can't you see he's just saying that? How could he possibly be a friend of your uncle's? You need to keep away from him. He's not safe.”

Harriet bridled. “Sir,” she began, “I would have you know...”

She stopped. She had been just about to pull Uncle Ardsley's rank on the unsuspecting porter. But there were several things which, she realised, were wrong about that approach. First of all, Uncle Ardsley wasn't here, and she was. She needed to be able to deal with things like this in her own right, rather than hiding behind an absent uncle, no matter how highly he ranked. Secondly, there was every chance that the porter might take “I am the Ambassador's niece” as meaning not “therefore you should listen to me”, but “therefore you should make even more of an effort to protect me”.

And, thirdly... well, thirdly, if she pulled any kind of rank at all, she was simply arguing on the porter's own ground. The porter was talking to her from a world where your likelihood of being a good person was judged according to your position in a complex and overlapping set of hierarchies, in which people like Uncle Ardsley were somewhere near the top and people like Ottokar were somewhere near the bottom. Countering the porter's judgement of Ottokar by bringing in Uncle Ardsley was simply reinforcing that basic view of the world, not going against it; it was, effectively saying, “Very well, Jägers are generally dangerous, but this one is all right because he has my lofty uncle's seal of approval.”

And Uncle Ardsley wasn't at all lofty, except physically of course, regardless of what honours had been showered on him. And, besides, he approved of Jägers in general. He didn't seem to have met a single one he hadn't got on with.

“I would have you know,” she said, instead, “that you have no idea what you are talking about. The Jägerkin are formidable fighters, it's true. But they are also loyal friends, some of the best my uncle has ever had.” There was a steely glint in her eyes. “When he was in danger, it was the Jägers who helped him. He'd be dead otherwise. Don't you _dare_ come up to me and tell me I shouldn't be talking to one.”

The porter took a step backwards. “But, miss...”

I helped bring down Bangladesh DuPree, thought Harriet. Admittedly I didn't know exactly how dangerous she was until Uncle told me the stories afterwards, but... I did that. So I'm not going to be frightened of _you_ , you little jobsworth.

“Go!” she barked.

The porter went, in haste.

“Hey,” said Ottokar. “Dat vos pretty goot. Dat vos almost Lady Heterodyne schtuff hyu did dere. Hyu not a schpark, are hyu?”

“No, just a good mechanic,” replied Harriet. “Really, though. He said I shouldn't be talking to you because you were dangerous. Humph!”

“Hy dangerous, all right,” said Ottokar, grinning. “But only ven dere is goot reason. Yust like hyu.” He paused. “Hyu not like hyu uncle. He vould have been more diplomatic. But, hey, voteffer vorks.”

“Yes, he'd have been more diplomatic, but he would still have been annoyed,” Harriet agreed. “And when Uncle Ardsley's annoyed, he generally cuts people up with words so sharply that it takes them a few moments to notice. Of course, he's an Ambassador now, so he can't really punch anyone on the nose.”

“Ja, he used to be qvick vit a gun ven he had to be,” Ottokar reminisced. “But he vouldn't have brought vun out for dot guy. Vhere is hyu uncle Ambassador?”

“This is going to sound terribly ironic, I'm afraid,” said Harriet, “but it's to the Wulfenbach Empire.”

Ottokar sighed. “Hy had no idea. Hy must have left yust before dat happened.” He brightened. “Schtill, dat must mean is safe to write to him again. If he und Gil vere schtill not getting on, he vould not be Ambassador to der Empire.”

“Gil?!”

“Ja, der Baron.”

“I know, but... it seems a little informal,” said Harriet.

Ottokar shrugged. “Hy a Jäger. Hy not very formal. Und hy did vork for him, after all.”

Harriet smiled. “Let me write down his address for you. I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear from you again after all this time.”

Ottokar beamed. “Is very kind of hyu. Danke! Hy vould have got his address anyvay from de pipple hy am seeing in Bath, but now hy can write der letter on der airship.”

Harriet was interested. “Oh? I didn't know Uncle Ardsley knew anyone in Bath.”

“Ho ja. A pair of retired schparks. Vell, as retired as schparks ever get.”

Ah, Ottokar, thought Harriet. Nicely retrieved there, but sparks don't retire, so they must have retired from doing something else. And since you don't want to tell me, and knowing what Uncle Ardsley used to do, I can make a very good guess at what.

“And is this just a visit, or do you live here in England?” she asked, innocently.

“Hy live here,” he replied, promptly. “Vell, as much as hy live anyvhere. But hy going to haff a bit of rest now. Hy going to go und rent a nize liddle place near my friends in Bath.”

Jackpot, thought Harriet triumphantly. Now I think I understand. I know Uncle Ardsley was on Castle Wulfenbach for a while. I've always had a good idea what he might have been doing there. If he was unmasked at some point, that would explain the split with the young Baron and the fact that he was later working with the Lady Heterodyne in some capacity I've yet to work out fully. And I do get the impression that when he left, he left in quite a hurry, so it's not unreasonable to assume he was thrown off. In the metaphorical sense, obviously.

And then the authorities would have had to send someone in to replace him. Someone who would be even less obvious than Uncle Ardsley, who, for goodness' sake, is clever.

And here's a very clever Jäger who doesn't sound remotely British, and knows Uncle Ardsley – which isn't saying much, because all the Jägers apparently do, but... he and Uncle Ardsley have also got some mutual friends in Bath who are “retired sparks”. And he was the Baron's chef. And he sees this country as home. Yes.

She scribbled down the address. “Ottokar,” she said. “Why don't you stay in touch with me too, if you'd like? Any friend of Uncle Ardsley's is a friend of mine.”

“Vould be a pleasure,” he replied, clearly meaning it.

“Excellent.” She wrote her own address below her uncle's. “Oh! Just in time. Here's the airship I was waiting for.” She blushed a little. “My young man is on board.”

He grinned. “Hyu better go und sort him out, den. Vouldn't vant him getting lost like hy did. Dat man said platform 4, ja?”

“He did. Lovely to meet you, Ottokar. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you. Have a safe journey.”

“Hyu too,” he replied, with a little bow. “Hy vould ask hyu to giff my regards to hyu uncle, but hy tink he vill get my letter before hyu can do dat.”

He vanished into the crowd, and the airship slipped gently into dock. Harriet hurried forward, and within a few minutes there was Pradhi, followed by a porter with his cabin trunk. He was dressed in perfect formal English style, all stiff white linen and polished brass buttons. Harriet had a very good idea whom he might have consulted about that.

He did, she reflected, look almost wickedly good in that shirt and waistcoat.

After the inevitable greetings, she said, “You'll never guess what has just happened, Pradhi. I've just run into an old friend of Uncle Ardsley's.”

Pradhi smiled. “I believe he is having a lot of old friends,” he observed.

“You'd be right. This one was a Jäger. I've never met a Jäger before, and I've always wanted to. He was lovely.”

Pradhi's eyes lit up at once. “What was he like? I have heard a great deal about them, but we are not having any in India.”

And that, thought Harriet, slipping her arm through Pradhi's, is why I suspect I am probably going to marry you.


End file.
